Due to recent advances in technology, computer users are now able to enjoy many features that provide an improved user experience, such as playing various media and multimedia content on their personal or laptop computers. For example, most computers today are able to play compact discs (CDs) so users can listen to their favorite musical artists while working on their computers. Many computers are also equipped with digital versatile disc (DVD) drives enabling users to watch movies.
In some multimedia environments, a computer has access to a computer-readable medium storing compressed media files such as Moving Picture Experts Group audio layer-3 (MP3) files and WINDOWS MEDIA technologies audio (WMA) and video files. The computer typically organizes the media files into playlists when the compressed media files are played on the computer. The files may be organized according to metadata or other property data associated with the media content. Metadata for a digital media file such as an audio file includes general information pertaining to the media file itself. This information is typically stored within the file. For example, an audio file may have metadata tags for the song title, song artist, album title, and a rating. For example, in the case of audio media files, the files may be organized by album, artist, genre, date, or some user-specified selection and ordering. A user easily navigates through this organization using menus and graphical displays to render the desired media files.
Existing systems store album art associated with media content and specified by the user in the media file. In addition, existing systems download album art from metadata providers and store the downloaded art with a generic filename (e.g., folder.jpg) in the directory storing the media file. The generic filename convention limits each file system folder or other directory storing media content to a single item of album art. When attempting to display album art for a media file, an operating system shell or the media player searches for album art stored in the media file and for album art stored via the generic filename. However, the user may have directories of mixed music (e.g., songs from different albums in the same directory). That is, the user may store content from multiple sources in the same directory. As such, the album art with the generic filename may not be associated with every item of media content in the directory. The existing systems may display the incorrect album art or prevent the user from storing media content from multiple sources in the same directory.
Accordingly, a system for associating image files with media content is desired to address one or more of these and other disadvantages.